


märchen

by orphan_account



Category: Vividred Operation
Genre: F/F, Friendship, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-28
Updated: 2013-04-28
Packaged: 2017-12-09 18:37:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/776690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Real life, it seems, is rather different from her storybooks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	märchen

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Star of Heaven (rubylily)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rubylily/gifts).



> super short & pretty angsty, sorry ;v;  
> just couldn't ignore this rather obvious canon love triangle!

When she is young, she reads a lot of fairy tales. It’s rather cliché, when she stops to think about it – the little sickly rich girl, locked away in her room, imagining herself a princess. Imagining a handsome prince on a white horse come to rescue her, his magic kiss of true love healing her every ill.

 

But cliché as it may be, it is what she dreams of most every night. It is what she wishes for on every shooting star and every New Year’s Eve. It is what she lets her mind wander to when the medicine is bitter and the treatments are painful and exhaustion keeps her bedridden for days at a time.

 

She meets her prince at age eleven, just as her naïve, childish hopes are beginning to wither and fade, and “he” is quite a bit different than what she once envisioned.

 

A motorized hover-scooter is hardly a white horse, after all, and the gift of a tomato is hardly as romantic as true love’s first kiss.

 

But in the end, Aoi thinks fondly, Akane is more than enough.

 

\--

 

\--

 

Her father doesn’t understand.

 

“You have the best private tutors in all of Tokyo,” he says, frowning at her from across the table, “and you wish to throw all of that away and attend _Oshima North Hill_? But… why, Aoi? It’s little more than a rural backwater schoolhouse – you’ll be in class with children years younger than yourself!”

 

“I just want to see what it’s like, Father,” Aoi says pleadingly. “To go to school like the others do! To feel… _normal_ , for a change.”

 

It’s the truth, but not all of it. She’s been waking up early, these past few weeks – rousing herself in that in-between hour when the light is still thin and the island is still quiet but for the sound of the waves. She’s been staring out the window every morning, waiting impatiently for that familiar mechanical hum and the flash of red hair that follows.

 

Above all else, what Aoi wants is to be near the pig-tailed girl who delivers the newspapers, the girl who smiles and waves to her every day without fail.

 

(When the teacher introduces her to the class, Akane’s face lights up in recognition, and Aoi knows that it’s worth it, if only for this single, precious moment.)

 

\--

 

\--

 

It often seems like Akane is waiting for someone.

 

It is present in the way she walks – off to the side, somehow, like she’s making room for a person who has yet to arrive. It is present in her eyes – the way she glances around when they’re out in public, as if she were searching for a particular face in the crowd. It is present in her laugh – happy and carefree, but lacking something all the same. A melody with half the notes unwritten.

 

“Aoi-chan,” she says one day, as they sit at the end of the pier, dangling their feet in the still water. “Have you ever thought about… _destiny_ before? ‘Soul mates’ and stuff, I mean.”

 

Aoi blinks at her for a moment, confused. “Well… I suppose I have,” she says. “It’s a nice idea. That no matter what, there’s someone out there waiting for you.”

 

“Yeah.” Akane stares up into the sky, shielding her eyes with her hand, a faint frown tugging at her lips. “But… There’s so _many_ people out there. What if your soul mate lives on the other side of the world or something? What if you never meet them? That seems… way too sad.”

 

“Yes,” Aoi says quietly. “But I think… If two people are truly meant to be together, they will be. No matter how impossible the odds.”

 

And then she smiles, though for some reason it hurts her heart to do so.

 

\--

 

\--

 

Things are different, after she receives her key. Something inside her has changed for the better. She can run now, and swim, and do all the things she never could before. Where she was once weak and sickly she is now strong, and her memories of sitting out, of watching jealously from the sidelines, begin to feel more and more like a distant dream.

 

One day she finds an old scrap of paper, tucked between the pages of her notebook. At the top, written in colourful marker, is: _Things To Do Once Aoi-chan Is Cured_.

 

_1) Climb Fuyou Hill and watch the sunset!_

_2) Go snorkeling in the bay!_

_3) Ride bikes across the entire island!!_

 

Aoi laughs as she scans down the page. They get progressively more ridiculous as the list goes on, culminating with number seventeen: bungee jumping from Motohara Waterfall.

 

Slowly, though, her laughter fades. It would be nice, she thinks, to cross something off the list. To do those simple, innocent things that she and Akane once dreamed of. But everything is different now. The Alones, the Vivid System… Never could she have imagined her life turning out this way. The world they live in is being threatened by an enemy they don’t understand, and against all odds _they_ are the only ones who can stop it.

 

There’s no time for childish adventures anymore, but she still cannot bring herself to throw the list away.

 

\--

 

\--

 

Aoi likes Kuroki Rei.

 

She’s an odd girl, but “odd” is a bit subjective nowadays, isn’t it? And Aoi has always been good at reading people. She can tell that Kuroki Rei is a nice person, deep down. She likes to feed the birds in the early hours of the morning, and she never skips out when it’s her turn to clean the classroom, and sometimes when she thinks no one is watching her eyes go all soft and sad around the edges.

 

“It’s hard to explain,” Akane says, with a perplexed frown. “But she just gives me this… _vivid_ feeling! Colourful, and bright, and, and exciting! I dunno, Aoi-chan. I can’t really explain it. I just know that I want her to be my friend.”

 

Akane talks about Kuroki-san a lot these days. It seems that no matter where their conversation starts it always ends with her, with Akane wondering what Kuroki’s family is like and if she has any hobbies and whether she might like to join them for their next group project at school.

 

Aoi tells herself she doesn’t mind. Akane is such an affable, outgoing person by nature – a person who desires to be well-liked by all. It’s only logical, then, that she would so desperately wish to befriend the one person who spurned her advances.

 

Aoi likes Kuroki Rei.

 

(But sometimes she hates her, too.)

 

\--

 

\--

 

Aoi plummets towards the earth, buffeted by the cold air, the power in her Palette Suit sapped. Above her she can see Akane break through the creature’s defenses, and feels a surge of pride knowing that their Vivid Impact rang true.

 

She imagines Rei in her mind, then, floating in some strange, inconceivable reality inside that insidious creature. She imagines Akane bursting through to rescue her (like a fairytale prince on a white horse); imagines the expression Rei’s face. Shock. Happiness. Gratitude. Perhaps something more, something that cannot be conveyed through a mere glance.

 

Aoi smiles as she falls – down, down towards the ocean below.

 

It must be the wind, making her eyes prickle like this.

 

Love, she thinks, is really such a powerful thing.


End file.
